Jameis Winston is just the latest in a long line of 2-sport stars

Florida State pitcher Jameis Winston (44) throws in the seventh inning of an NCAA college baseball tournament super regional game against Indiana on Sunday, June 9, 2013, in Tallahassee, Fla. Indiana won 11-6, and advances to the College World Series. (AP Photo/Phil Sears)

Jameis Winston, the country’s best college football player, is spending his spring playing baseball.

That may not be easy to do in Florida, a state where, as the old jokes goes, the two biggest sports are football and spring football. (College basketball, where the University of Florida is No. 1 in the country, is still third).

But having delivered a national title to Florida State in football, Winston hopes to bookend it with one this spring.

Winston, who played Tuesday against the Yankees and went 0-for-2, said his “dream” is to play two sports professionally, and he’s cited Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders as precedents, and that’s understandable: Both played in the NFL and MLB, Jackson is also from Winston’s hometown of Bessemer, Ala., and Sanders also attended FSU.

But it’s worth remembering a few more two-sports college stars, some of whom played two professionally, and some who did so even before ESPN was around to celebrate them.

Winston wasn’t born when Charlie Ward won Florida State’s first Heisman Trophy in 1993, but Ward played 10 years in the NBA. Dave DeBusschere pitched two seasons for the White Sox, played 12 seasons in the NBA (played and coached for three of them) and won titles in 1970 and 1973 for the Knicks.

Shortstop Dick Groat was an All-American college basketball player at Duke, played a year in the NBA and 14 in MLB, winning an MVP and the 1960 and 1964 World Series.

And nearly a century ago, George Halas played a dozen games for the New York Yankees in the outfield in 1919; a year later he helped form a professional football league and the Yankees settled on Babe Ruth in right field.

With hindsight, it’s safe to say both Halas and the Yankees made correct decisions. Winston should be as wise.